Immortal game -- need strategy help!

Joined
Nov 27, 2008
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My latest Immortal game was a dismal failure. I pulled the plug on it around 1000AD.
Here was the problem: It was the combination of other civs on the continent plus the shape of the continent. It is a LONG, but relatively narrow continent. I am at one end, then a LONG distance away is Ghandi and Elizabeth is at the far end. There is a lot of really good land between me and Ghandi. That is the good news. The bad news is that he is so far away that early rush doesn't make much sense even though I have Horses and Iron. Ghandi founded Hinduism and Elizabeth converted (as did I), but then -- since we are at Immortal -- Ghandi just merrily techs me into the dirt.

So, from the start, what would be your normal strategy in this situation? I am going to try to replay it, but not clear what strategy to try. Thanks.
 
Well.....sounds like you depend on trying to kill everyone before economic collapse. Sounds like the solution to your problem therefore is an economy :p
 
Tried that last game! My economy was running just fine when I quit the game. Ghandi at Immortal naturally has better land, and his fast workers leverage his advantages on me. You are not going to beat him at his own game on this map. I promise.

I did start over with the idea of letting the Barbs build cities between Ghandi and me. Then capture those cities with War Chariots. Then declared on Ghandi and dropped one of his cities and started pillaging around his capital (llots of $$$ there), and have eliminated his two metal mines. So now I guess it will be a race to see which of us can get Cats first. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is still "pleased" with me. That's a little surprising. I don't know how well this strategy is going to play out, but it's at least more interesting.
 
I am on my third replay. The second might have worked, but it would have involved a long war with Ghandi to finally take his capital -- not my idea of two hours of "fun."

For my latest strategy, I am focused on a "choke" spot that is far away from me but fairly close to Ghandi. It is a beautiful seaport with Marble, grasslands, mines, corn, and pigs. Unfortunately, there was no way to get a Settler there ahead of Ghandi, so I sent a War Chariot to the spot. When he sent a Settler, I killed his Archer and took the worker. So now we have a weird "war" where my only goal is to keep him off this settlement location until we can make peace and then have my own Settler there to immediately create a city. I have never tried this tactic before. Will it work? Have you guys ever done this?
 
Why don't you post a couple of screenshots? I would like to see that LONG, but relatively narrow continent :)
I used to settle my second city on a chokepoint thousand miles away from cap....... while playing Warlord level. I think that maintenance from distance to palace will kill you, or at least slow down your research far behind Gandhi.
 
Why don't you post a couple of screenshots? I would like to see that LONG, but relatively narrow continent :)
I used to settle my second city on a chokepoint thousand miles away from cap....... while playing Warlord level. I think that maintenance from distance to palace will kill you, or at least slow down your research far behind Gandhi.

The location will be either 10 or 12 tiles away from Thebes, depending upon whether I want fish or corn in the fat cross. The fish are on the tile right behind Elizabeth's boat in the screen shot. They are both great spots, and although the fish is slightly better, I worry about getting cultural pressure from one of his big cities. Bombay is only 6 tiles away, and he will try to build right across that area that is only 5 tiles wide to increase the cultural pressure on me. I'd like to put TWO cities in there as soon as I can make peace. I know about the distance penalty (the worker you see is 11 tiles away from Thebes), but both would have good production capacity and I already have COL, so I can get them busy on courthouses.

Is this plan going to work? Please suggest where you would locate two cities to block off Ghandi on this map? Thanks.
 

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I will sometimes try to build the Great Lighthouse and spam cities when i have a lot of worthless coast. You can grab a lot of land quickly (especially blocking land a long ways from your capital), then tech to a useful military unit where you can roll over your neighbors. I find Gandhi is not a unit spammer, so when you surprise him, he usually is with his pants down.
 
Tech up to nukes before he gets to SDI and blast him.

Assuming he doesn't get cultural before that. It really depends on how far you are behind. Enough drafted rifles/whipped cannons may be able to beat him, but if he's at infantry or greater you'll be needing a whole lot of them. Nukes are always a great equalizer. If he goes culture, try and raze one of his legendary cities to give yourself more time.

If you never OB and he doesn't slip behind you, I think 1W of the worker seals it off entirely. I don't know where to place two cities without the save/larger shot of the map.

Wait...no tactical nukes in Warlords. ICBM's are less efficient because they cost so much more and submarines can ferry tactical nukes in range. That strategy may not work as well.

My advice comes from having played solely BTS.
 
In one of my replays, I did go in and pillage the hell around his capital mostly to get some cash. One of the side-effects of that was that it allowed Elizabeth to found Taoism ahead of him, and so she converted to Taoism. I am wondering whether having an opposing religion might lead to a war which I could join. But, as I recall, Elizabeth is not very prone to warfare.

I have now abandoned my previous strategy, because I couldn't hold him off the spot.. In my new game, I am going all-out to get a Settler up there ahead of him. We'll see.
 
No offense Ramesses, but what you try, are methods that won't make you a better player. You have horses in BFC, right? You have Iron somewhere, right? Why don't you tech to Cuirrassiers, pre-build WCs / HAs / Knights, create a GM (maybe from GLH) , upgrade them, and roflstomp the map? By what I've read, I think that you want to build to many WWs, you spend too much time on Religion (1 is fine, but not more) and you are dependent on a rush that doesn't work on that map. Learn to adapt, then you will beat any map on Immortal.
 
I have Macintosh and Warlords. Can you open the file?:)

Sorry, no Mac.

So here is the best i can do instead. You have plenty of land there. Found your second city asap and expand to about 5-7 cities by 500 BC. This will give you an excellent base. Then build a force of about 10+4*number of cities you intend to capture. Prefferably about 2 cats for each city you want to capture. Attack 2 cities at a time. Ghandhi do not build many units until DoWed then he can field a sizable force fast at this level. Use collateral promoted cats for suicide and finish with ground units of choice. WC does well even against spears. Once he is down about 4 cities, you should have the upper hand. BTW, do this before he get LB, else bring additional cats. They still hurt LB's pretty bad. Good luck.
 
I have Macintosh and Warlords. Can you open the file?:)

Mac does not matter. CIV Savegame files are the same data and structure for both Mac and Windows. The possible problem would be Warlords for many players.
 
I have now abandoned my previous strategy, because I couldn't hold him off the spot.. In my new game, I am going all-out to get a Settler up there ahead of him. We'll see.

You can hold that spot if you prioritize it, i.e, if you don't wonder spam. Maybe Stonehenge is OK, but I would settle that Marble and build Oracle there, even as first build, being Ind with Marble (don't need to build quarry), a couple of chops would be enough to get it quickly. That city's gonna be a very nice GP farm, with corn, fish and pigs. Later build TGL, Parthenon and NE there. Oracle will also provide a respectable amount of culture to counter Bombay.

The other way is: let Ghandi found his cities there, train lots of chariots and take them.
 
BTW, the easiest way to claim the spot is to run your starting settler in that direction. You have 5 or 6 turns before barb animals show up. Then build a wonder or two and stress gandhi out with culture instead. You can back fill the pennisula later.

Ha! That gets pretty close to "cheating", doesn't it? My game ethics requires me to discover the spot before I can send the Settler there.
 
I heard that Warlords datadisc has a bit more difficult higher difficulties then BtS.

If you have Horses and Iron why don't you tech MT for Cavalries?
Other option is catapults pure warfare since siege can kill in Warlords.

But honestly if you have ~6 cities which you grab first, I would hold on the Cavs mantra through lib path.

I don't like playing Warlords much, because there is only HoF mod for better UI and even then it still lacks in quality compared to BUG under BtS otherwise I would give it a go if you would post a save...
 
I heard that Warlords datadisc has a bit more difficult higher difficulties then BtS.

If you have Horses and Iron why don't you tech MT for Cavalries?
Other option is catapults pure warfare since siege can kill in Warlords.

But honestly if you have ~6 cities which you grab first, I would hold on the Cavs mantra through lib path.

I don't like playing Warlords much, because there is only HoF mod for better UI and even then it still lacks in quality compared to BUG under BtS otherwise I would give it a go if you would post a save...

Since you don't particularly like playing Warlords, that is a generous offer. Thank you very much! I uploaded the initial starting position so that you can tackle the map any way you choose. If the idea is to destroy Ghandi militarily, I would think that the best strategy would be -- as somebody posted earlier -- hit him with Knights before he gets to Long Bows. Otherwise, as you say, the next opportunity might be with Calvary.

Since I am always peaceful, Temple-builder in pursuit of Cultural Victory by that late stage of the game, I have zero experience at initiating a war that late. Are you guys saying the Ghandi neglects his military defenses so much that he leaves himself vulnerable to attack even when he has as good -- or better -- units (Cavs/Rifles)? That is surprising.:)
 

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ok played very quick shadow to 25 AD and honestly not sure if this is winning position...

expanded to 6 cities easily, got stonehenge, mids, but got beaten last turn to TGL by Ghandi :-(, got the marble a bit too late :-(. Maybe some optimization in tech path is needed

did something very suboptimal on the way. Was late to the Literature - the detour through Drama was bad thinking on my part since I read something about Drama being good in Warlords in some other thread like this week, but didn't fit the gameplan (which is SSE/WWE and TGL is big part of it), if i were to play this again, I would make TGL much bigger priority, let's call it inexperience with Warlords.

The land is crap. It's mostly unimprovable until CS, no hapiness at all and what I realized Immortal in Warlords have 1 less happy cap which is BIG issue.

What is even worse I got 2 great prophets already and NONE scientist even if I expected the second one to be scientist

Got CoL this turn and could switch to caste which is probably best way to go now and try for the scientist from cap with flooding the city with scientists.

Obviously CS->Paper->Edu, bulb philo ideally and 1/2 of edu with 2 GS's. Academy will have to wait.

Should allow some backtrading finally.
Have CoL on them, but currency is too expensive. Ghandi holds Music.

Only 2 trading partners is bad for multiplying your research.

This map looks like crap sorry :). Maybe someone else who would invest more time into micro would do much better (that TGL is BIG mistake on my part)

I think if I would catch up on the Lib path now with caste GS's the game is winnable.
Improve the land with farms and after MT just whip cavs.

Ghandi has like 8 cities which is not that much bigger then I managed to get.

ah that TGL...would have made the scientists business so much easier now :-(
 
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